I got stumped by this guy at a bar. It started with the usual “so what do you do?” question which was easy to answer. I told him I am a freelance patternmaker who helps women’s fashion brands create the templates for their factory to cut out the fabric so their clothes will fit.
Being a software developer, he knew little about fashion or sewing, but asked a few more questions about my work. I didn’t expect to be caught off-guard by one of his comments. He said: “We’ve been making similar clothes for decades now, you’d think they’d have figured out a template that fits already.” Hm.
Why do we still need to make new patterns for basic garments like tee-shirts? I didn’t have an immediate good answer, but now that I’ve given it more thought, I know why.
We do keep making the same types of garments over decades, but we don’t make the exact same garment over and over. There are cases where this does happen – like military or uniforms where the style and fit evolve much much more slowly. Most of fashion, however, changes too fast for any sort of universal pattern solution. The style is changing, society’s fit preferences changes, average body measurements change, and fabrics change from season to season. These changes all need to be accounted for in a pattern that fits.
Every brand’s style and customer demographics differ as well. A pattern fits well and works as a block template for one brand wouldn’t work for another. Over the many years I’ve been a patternmaker, I have created patterns for many very similar designs, but none of the patterns have been the same.
The industry hasn’t figured out universal patterns that fit because there are too many differing factors that constitute what good fit is.